Route reliability record
LGA→SDF
New York to Louisville
- Flights
- 1,033
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 659 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,033 LGA to SDF flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGA to SDF: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 86.1%, against 79.9% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 992 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.97%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
80.0% on time across 1,032 flights
These figures cover 1,033 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LGA to SDF
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,032 | 80.0% | 60 min | 3.97% | B− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 109 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on LGA to SDF
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New York to Louisville
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LGA → SDFNew York to Louisville | Republic Airways | 76.8% | 80.0% | 3.97% | 8am–11am, Tue (route) | YX 5643 08:30 |
| 2. EWR → SDFNewark to Louisville | Republic Airways | 76.1% | 80.8% | 5.81% | 8am–11am, Tue (route) | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am20 flights—
- 8am–11am289 flights86.2%
- 11am–2pm271 flights82.9%
- 2pm–5pm141 flights84.7%
- 5pm–8pm312 flights68.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 86.2% of the time, against 68.6% for the evening window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 312 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA to SDF by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On LGA to SDF, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 86.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 68.6%, a wide gap of 17.6 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am86.2%
- 11am–2pm82.9%
- 2–5pm84.7%
- 5–8pm68.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
September is the best month on the calendar at 89.6% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 115 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.9%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 12,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 38 to one. The split is drawn from 11,906 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.97%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 659 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.1% on time across 1,034 flights, 3 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,033 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SDF after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.97% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 992 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to SDF questions
How often is LGA to SDF delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.1% of the 1,033 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is LGA to SDF compared with the rest of the country?
79.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LGA to SDF?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 86.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.6%, 18 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are March delays on LGA to SDF?
March is the weakest month at 71.4% on time, compared with 89.6% in September. Across the year that is 18 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- SDF to LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- ORD to SDF, a related route75.8%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.0%
- American Airlines on-time record0.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGA to SDF and SDF to LGA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.